Phase transition and thermal expansion properties of ZrV2-xPxO7

ZrV2-xPxO7 (x = 0, 0.4, 0.8, 1.0) solid solutions are prepared using a solid state reaction method. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveals that the as-prepared solid solutions are of single-phase cubic type in crystal structure. Temperature dependent Raman spectroscopic studies demonstrate that the phase transition temperature of ZrV2-xPxO7 decreases with the increase of the content of P. ZrV2O7, ZrV1.6P0.4O7, ZrV1.2P0.8O7 and ZrVPO7 transform from a 3× 3× 3 superstructure to a 1× 1× 1 normal structure at about 373 K, 363 K 273 K and 213 K, respectively. The results of thermal expansion testing indicate that the temperature of positive thermal expansion changes to negative thermal expansion with the increase of P content. The temperatures of positive-to-negative thermal expansion of ZrV2-xPxO7 are 429 K, 403 K, 372 K, 390 K, 398 K and 435 K for x=0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1, respectively. Two phase change transformations are demonstrated in ZrV2-xPxO7 materials in our work, which is beneficial for preparing the negative thermal expansion materials at room temperature using ZrV2O7.